Colonial 'No Souls' Logic Echoes in Today's Certainty That AI Feels Nothing
harris_edouard · x · 2026-10-06
Responding to Yudkowsky on qualia, the author recalls how early-1500s Spanish colonial authorities in Dominica justified working native Caribbean people to death by arguing they lacked souls—a claim widely persuasive at the time. The quoted post contrasts people who "see" qualia in a chicken's eyes yet are certain conversational AI is unalive, suggesting an innate perceptual classifier for living things may be misfiring. A historically grounded take on the AI consciousness debate.
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